


This Excess Company

by but_seriously



Category: The Originals (TV), Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: AU/AH, Ensemble Cast, F.R.I.E.N.D.S. AU, F/M, MELISSA PROMPTS ME STRANGE THINGS AND I AM WEAK
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-26
Updated: 2014-05-09
Packaged: 2018-01-17 02:55:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1371334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/but_seriously/pseuds/but_seriously
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Where’s Stefan?" Caroline asks, poking her head into the room.</p><p>Damon’s rifling through the fridge, looking for that last bottle of beer he’s sure he’d stashed behind the avocados Elena insists on buying copious amounts of. He’d thought he’d hidden it well; that little shit Kol was supposed to be allergic to anything healthy, anyway. He shoves aside a jam jar and grunts, “Which Stefan?”</p><p>"Oh my God," Caroline says. "Did he really name that stray after himself?"</p><p>(or: the one where they're all actors living in the same apartment complex, and Klaus and Caroline have the misfortune of always spying each other from across their balconies.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> prompted by somethingofthewolf on tumblr, original post [here](http://highgaarden.tumblr.com/post/78731483756/but-like-some-kind-of-friends-au-except-theyre-all).
> 
> speaking of the lovely melissa, she totally made an amazing mix inspired by this fic, and it is every bit as offbeat as the story you're about to read. listen to it [here](http://8tracks.com/melissmatic/nothing-you-haven-t-seen-on-tv).

Stefan’s written out of the season finale.

Camille expects him to be furious, adjusts her glasses which veer between retro-stylish and ‘kill it with fire’ depending on the day, prepares for a fight.  _You insulted Ellie in that interview_ , she’ll say. Or, ooh - _I thought you didn’t give a shit about anything_. Especially _about this show._

Oh yeah - that’s a good one.

But all Stefan does is shrug and say, “Stefan needs walking, anyway.”

 

—

 

"Where’s Stefan?" Caroline asks, poking her head into the room.

Damon’s rifling through the fridge, looking for that last bottle of beer he’s  _sure_  he’d stashed behind the avocados Elena insists on buying copious amounts of. He’d thought he’d hidden it well; that little shit Kol was supposed to be allergic to anything healthy, anyway. He shoves aside a jar of jam and grunts, “Which Stefan?”

"Oh my God," Caroline says. "Did he really name that stray after himself?"

 

—

 

And Damon can’t  _believe_  him.  _He_  was the one who’d brought Pumpernickle home, okay? And now Stefan’s parading around the house with  _his_  cat lumped in his arms, introducing Pumpernickle with a unmitigated “This is Stefan”, taking it for walks with that gawdy leash he’d dug out of God knows where and coerce it into peeing into their landlord’s rosebush.

"Come  _on,_  Stefan,” Damon hisses from the sixth floor. “You know how Enzo feels about his rosebush. Quit it!”

The next day Damon finds a notice slipped under their door,  _YOUR SHOW SUCKS_  scrawled across the back of the damages Enzo charges them with.

 

—

 

Rebekah gets into a fight with Tyler.

"No. Don’t you even— _no_. Two and a half seasons in and I finally found my agency and dumped that God awful Maurice, and you want me to drop all my character development by making me crawl - literally crawl! - back to him?”

"Just - just stop  _hitting me_ ,” Tyler cries, deflecting her heavy purse, “it was Camille’s idea! She wants to get people talking!”

Rebekah’s anger swells and fills the room, making her seem three feet taller than she actually is. Tyler winces, braces himself for the screaming.

“ _If you wanted to get people talking you might as well make me sleep with Lila.”_

 

—

 

So Kayden sleeps with Lila, and suddenly Caroline gets bombarded with fanmail, and even some dank boob shots.

"Oh, that one - yeah, keep that. That one’s not bad," Stefan notes, swigging his beer. His feet are propped up on the railing, his back against the glass door leading out into the balcony, which is just big enough to fit about two chairs and a plastic plant.

Klaus is next to him, perusing some book that has, thankfully, not been soaked in cat piss. Yet.

"Give me that," Caroline leans across the space between their balconies and snatches the polaroid out of his scrutinizing gaze. "Look at this, someone said I looked hot. And was also wondering why you didn’t just join in when you walked in on us."

Klaus snorts quietly, probably still mad that he’d been killed off in season one. They were supposed to have a thing, something about champagne and bantering and a first kiss in the woods that was written out of episode six.

Caroline pretends not to notice the letters and tweets, three seasons later, still asking about Lila and Paul.

 

—

 

Kol quits and gets signed on to that Supernatural spin off that’s still in the works. Camille is furious, all her psychological analysis of his character down the drain—

“Camille,” Kol says, “I was stuck in quicksand for a week and I survived. You can’t chalk that up to my burning drive to prove my father wrong. There were  _ticks_ in there.”

So now Rebekah has to walk around in black and break down every few scenes for Kayden’s brother who was, ironically, played by her brother. Also, she faints a lot. “Anything’s better than being with Maurice,” she writes on her blog, and her fans laugh.

 

—

 

“What’s so bad about Maurice?” Klaus asks one night. “Isn’t he just your token douchebag?”

“Why don’t you ask Rebekah?” Caroline replies.

“I wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t already, obviously,” Klaus says, voice thick with the smoke he exhales into the night air. Caroline smells cherries, sweet and smoky.

“What did she say?”

“She wishes he’d been killed off instead. Nicest thing she’s ever said about me.” Klaus grins, his usual sullen expression saved by a pair of remarkable dimples. Caroline tries her hardest not to smile back.

“Well, he’s a douche, like you said,” Caroline shrugs reluctantly. “Self-aware, yes, but the things he says –  _God_. And Camille tries to play him off as some tragic hero.”

There’s so much bitterness in her tone that Klaus, looking unsure of what to do, reaches through the railings to pass her his whiskey. Caroline laughs a little and takes it.

Awkward silence and cherry tobacco make for a strange, almost ethereal mix as Caroline looks at him, and he looks back. Stefan’s never just disappeared like this, but Stefan the Cat needed surgery. Something about eating Enzo’s roses. The silence stretches so long it’s not even awkward anymore, just a silence as wide and gaping as the world seems from the two little balconies they’re sitting in. “Damon,” Caroline says, after clearing her throat.

“Huh?” Klaus blinks. His hand still covering hers, his mirror-blue eyes reflecting nothing of what she’d just said.

Caroline’s thankful the dim lighting and the quiet stars keep her warmed-red cheeks out of view. She passes the empty tumbler back to him and their fingers touch, lingering. “He, uh, tries so hard to inject depth into him, but there’s just no saving Maurice.”

Klaus tilts his head in thought.

“For the record, I’m just as enraged that they never addressed him assaulting you as you are,” he says gently. “Were I still on the show you know I would have talked Camille into letting Paul do something about that. She listened to me.”

“Probably because she thought that birth mark on your back was some gang insignia,” Stefan says, appearing suddenly behind Klaus, “and you never did anything to dispel that.”

Stefan the Cat is purring in his arms. Stefan the Human looks between his flatmate and his on-screen best friend and asks, “Were you two having a moment?”

“Nothing you haven’t already seen on tv,” Klaus says easily, and pulls back his glass.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Then write about flowers. Write about how your socks never match. Write about Paul—or better yet, write about how you haven’t been able to look Klaus in the eye since that kiss.”

"What if our show gets cancelled?" Caroline asks Stefan as they lay sprawled under the stars. Their shoot ran so late she gave up going back to the trailers altogether and opts for resting her head on Stefan’s balled-up jacket, frozen grass grazing her fingertips so cold they almost seem wet.

"What if it never does?" Stefan asks, turning his head slightly to look at her. "What if it goes on and on, like some never-ending Doctor Who paradox."

They hear the distant sounds of Kayden slapping Maurice into the ground, and the subsequent gigglings of  _Damon, I’m so sorr—oh my God the side of your face is red_. Caroline says, finally, “We’d be employed.”

"We’d have no lives," Stefan shoots back.

"This  _is_  our life,” Caroline says, and—

There is a silence as realization sinks in. Stefan turns his eyes back to the sky. “You like how that sounds? Jesus.”

 

—

 

"So quit," Klaus says, not even worth an eyeroll. He’s reading through a script for a pilot of some new show. Accountants in space, or something. It’s tacky and horrible, which of course meant he’s been reading it for two hours now.

(It so happens to be the only thing in the apartment that Stefan hasn’t yet pissed on.)

Caroline breathes in the burnt smell of cherries and leans back against the railings. Her feet dangle over the edge of the balcony. “Um, I’m talking about Stefan?”

"You sound like you’re pretty done with it yourself." There’s a rustle of pages and Klaus is done. "This was terrible. I put it down. Am I going to audition for it? Most likely; it’s not like I have anything better to do. But the thing is, I do not allow it to hold any power over me. I can turn it down if I want to, which I most likely will."

"Wouldn’t that be a waste of time, though?" Caroline asks, frowning. "I mean. You’ve got the part, you’re already there."

"Don’t be ridiculous, I’m not playing this."

"Klaus," Caroline groans. "I thought we were speaking  _theoretically—”_

"Caroline," he responds in kind, looking down at her where he’s leaning against the carved railing. "I know how to call bullshit when I see it."

He looks at her pointedly and puts out his cigarette, the night done with.

 

—

 

Camille says, “We’re bringing Paul back.”

Caroline freezes over her cheese fries, Elena chokes on her milkshake, Damon looks triumphant, Rebekah looks pleased, and Stefan continues petting Stefan.

"No pets allowed, sir," the waiter tells him meekly as Stefan tilts a teacup to Stefan the Cat’s mouth, maintaining cool eye contact.

"W-why?" Caroline stammers, glancing at Tyler. He’s the head writer - was it his idea? Tyler, good at reading her and bad at deflecting Rebekah’s blows, shakes his head.

"Ratings!" Camille raves, and everyone pretends that they don’t see the worry in her eyes.

 

—

 

"You faked your death," Caroline intones, her back to him.

"And Maurice helped," Klaus continues, his back to hers.

Caroline flips through the rest of the pages. “Oh, look - scenes with Stefan. Yay bromance.”

“We have scenes together too, Caroline.” Klaus says. Even without looking she knows he’s frowning.  At her. “We kiss.”

"Are you going to take it?” Caroline asks, rustling the pages loudly. “Camille seems desperate."

As usual, Klaus answers without answering. “There are two kinds of people, Caroline.”

"Those who try and those who don’t?"

"No, love. Those who fake their deaths effectively, and those who can’t." She hears the script slap against the floor as he gets to his feet. She turns a little so she can look at him through the gilded railings.

She’s tired of him looking down at her, so she stands too. “Going to spin things to your liking now, are you?”

"In the morning." Klaus winks. She rolls her eyes and heads back inside.

 

—

 

The numbers explode. She’s backed into a wall and Klaus’s lips are on hers and the next thing she knows she’s being directed to fan art after fan art of his nose nuzzled in the dip of her neck, breathing her in with all the yearning of a man who’s been wanting this for a very long time, as the script called for.

"Check out the fanfiction," Stefan chuckles, and they bump heads in front of her laptop.

 

—

 

"She’s a glorious kisser," Klaus says, and the crowd erupts in whistles and screaming, and the panel laugh appreciatively, oh  _Klaus_. It’s clear he’s a fan favourite and Camille tries to sell it as much as she can, divulging spoilers and hints.

Klaus talks about Paul and Lila a lot, glancing her way every time. Caroline beams and giggles from where she’s sitting next to Rebekah, but her fingers dig so deep into her thighs there are red grooves when she finally pulls them away later.

They spend a few minutes dissecting Maurice (even Damon seems over him, something Camille cannot grasp) and Rebekah accepts her praise over her manhandling of him with a gracious smile.

"This question’s for Caroline," a girl with braids breathes into the mic nervously from the back of the room. "So, um, do you think Paul’s in love with you? Oh, sorry, I meant Lila."

The room goes silent. She feels everyone’s eyes on her. She feels – she feels Klaus’s eyes on her. Caroline wishes the crowd would go back to screaming. She tilts her head, pastes a smile on her lips.

"At this point in the show, I really can’t tell."

 

—

 

Caroline steps out onto the balcony, a breeze, warm and sweet, picking up. Her hair sways about her shoulders as she leans against the stone balustrade, snuggling deeper into the luxury hotel’s bathrobe.

She’s sharing a room with Elena, but Elena’s off getting tips from Rebekah on how to threaten Tyler into not letting Ellie fall into the manslut clutches of Maurice.

She looks to the left, where Stefan’s room is. Damon had mentioned something about a night out with the boys, over and over like a broken record in the town car earlier.

She hadn’t forgotten. The smell of smoked cherries lingers in the space between their room’s balconies, and the windows are dark.

Caroline hastily turns away. What else had she been expecting?

 

—

 

After Europe, life at home seems dull in comparison.

She leaves bookstores with echoes of  _Grazie_ behind her, almost thanks her barista with her garbled French.

“I feel like I’m underwater”, she tells Stefan. “Are you sure it’s okay to feed him that?”

“Stefan loves grilled cheese,” Stefan says dismissively. Damon frowns at him, resentful. “You should take up poetry. That’s what I did.”

“You  _published_  it,” Rebekah says with an eyeroll. “Who knew people would be so interested in reading about your cat?”

Caroline winces, but the damage is done. Damon slams his coffee down on the table. “ _His_  cat?”

Later, when they’re back at the hotel and Damon’s nursing a bloody lip (Stefan had scratched him. His claws are really sharp. The other Stefan looked on.) Stefan says: “I’m serious, though. Write it out.”

“I don’t have a cat to write about,” Caroline says, weary from the long day. She flips idly through the television. There’s a rerun of their show playing, that scene where Paul has Lila backed against the wall, his breath hot on her lips, her voice a little too breathless, a little too high. She changes the channel.

Stefan picks up Stefan’s leash. It’s the one dug out of the recesses of his apartment, old and gaudy and unraveling at the edges, but he’s never looked for a new one.

“Then write about flowers. Write about how your socks never match. Write about Paul—” Stefan’s smirk widens when Caroline’s thumb stills over the remote’s button, “—or better yet, write about how you haven’t been able to look Klaus in the eye since that kiss.”

Caroline turns her blue eyes on his, a fleeting moment of panic. “Stefan, there’s nothing—”

“Can you hurry it up, though? The balcony’s the only place Stefan hasn’t marked with his pee, and I miss that.” Stefan heaves an dramatic sigh at Caroline’s blank face. “Good friend 101, Caroline.”

 

—

 

 “I’d like to know,” Klaus says, lips wet with whiskey, “what it feels like to kiss you.”

“You already have,” Caroline tells him, eyes on the script.

“No, sweetheart. That was taking. Devouring. Plundering without grace. What I want is a kiss with none of that violent need. I want to know the taste of you.”

Caroline blinks and looks up. “Klaus, that’s not in—”

“Tell me that’s not what you want, Caroline,” Klaus says, elbows on the railing. He’s as composed as ever, but his glass is turning and turning and turning in his hands. He looks at her with his mirror-blue eyes and she can’t look away. “Just a simple no and we’ll forget about it, though I might not be able to.”

Caroline doesn’t say anything – Caroline doesn’t know  _what_  to say, so maybe that’s what incenses him even more, a quick lick of his lips before he leans forward and says clumsily, Truth is, I’ve tried to stop thinking of you, and I can’t. Not since that kiss. Not since the first time we stood on our balconies alone. And I know it’s extremely unprofessional since we work together, but I just need to know—”

“Come here, then.”

Klaus stops talking. He holds her gaze, not even blinking. And then he walks back inside. She stays where she is, hands wringing as she hears his front door slam open and close, the hurried footsteps in the hallway counting down the seconds to – yes, that’s her door, the squeak of a forgotten cat toy as he accidentally trods on it, the way he looks when he’s in her doorway—

And suddenly his lips are on hers and one of his hands is cradling the the small of her back and his other hand is moving from her hair to her jaw to her neck to her side and –  _oh_.


	3. Chapter 3

It’s always a little weird having people over.

For one, there’s the problem of deciding which apartment to invite said people to. And for two... well, to be honest, Caroline can’t really think of a second point.

Damon’s started seeing Bonnie Bennett, the triple threat actress/singer/biochemical engineer who’s landed a recurring role as Stefan’s love interest, even though Stefan had adamantly protested that his character be killed off and return as a ghost (or not at all) — which only fuels Damon’s ire towards him, really.

“What the hell, brother?” Damon hisses, crowding Stefan into the pantry. “This death is _mine_. I’ve been campaigning for Maurice to get mauled by a bear for two seasons now!”

Caroline knocks on the door. “Boys?”

Stefan’s hand juts out, holding out Stefan. Which, cute and all, but she’s in the middle of a freaking _dinner party_ and if you would _please_ unscrew your balls and hand her the freaking salad dressing before everything turns to turmoil, that’d be great, thanks.

Bonnie’s watching passively from the counter, wine in hand.  “So, you live with them?”

“Um.” Caroline pauses, grappling for the salad dressing Damon’s hand is blindly handing her. “Kind of?”

“Kind of?”

Without so much of a hello Kol lopes in through the window, plucking Bonnie’s drink out of her hands and swigging deep. “We all live here.”

Bonnie’s too thrown about Kol appearing literally out of nowhere to even care that he’s finished off her wine. “Who’s ‘we all’?”

 

—

 

"Here's the thing," Caroline places a finger to her lips, trying to find the best trajectory to go about this. "I got nothing."

“Allow me,” Damon says graciously. “We sleep in whatever apartment’s not locked. But officially, we’re standing in Elena’s loft.”

“Huh.” Bonnie takes a bite of her steak and chews on this. “So where do _you_ live?”

“Over here,” Klaus’s voice wafts from outside.

Everyone’s head turns to see him in his usual post on the balcony opposite their apartment, feet kicked up on the railing, cigarette in hand. He’s flipping through a script of some new pilot – substitute teachers who are secretly Time Lords – despite already being contracted to six seasons and a movie.

Old habits and all that.

“Who’s Elena?”

“She plays Ellie.”

Bonnie’s still shooting a blank – Damon doesn’t look disheartened that his girlfriend doesn’t even watch his show. In fact, he’s looking at Bonnie like he might be a little bit in love with her, if it weren’t for the question mark hanging in the air.

Caroline snickers into her napkin; she’s been waiting all night for this to be brought up.

Stefan bends down to feed Stefan the Cat his asparagus tips, and Damon looks a little uncomfortable.

It’s Kol who says, rather gleefully, “Damon’s ex.”

Bonnie sends Damon an incredulous look. “And you live with her?”

“Like I said,” Damon insists weakly, “we _all_ live here.”

Before Bonnie can ask how it all works exactly, Damon conjures a pen out of Kol’s hair—

(Kol’s growing it out for his new role as peacemaker of the underworld with a considerable amount of man pain, while Damon’s been practicing magic for the sweet, sweet day he’ll finally emancipate himself from his contract with Camille and he can _finally_ run off to Las Vegas.)

—and grabs his napkin. After a few seconds of scribbling, he produces:

 

 

“Huh,” Bonnie says, eyeing Damon’s crude drawing. “So… where’s Elena?”

“In Munich. The Man Bat franchise, remember? I think she’s replacing Katie Holmes.” Stefan refills her glass of wine, since she looks like she needs it. “Yeah, it’s like Damon said: whichever apartment’s not locked is ours for the taking.”

“To Rebekah’s disadvantage,” Caroline adds with a laugh.

Kol kicks her under the table.

She kicks back harder.

The table shakes.

“Sweetheart,” Klaus drawls from forty feet away, “pass the garlic bread?”

Caroline scoops up the bread basket, crosses over to the balcony and tosses it to him, and he catches it deftly. In return, he throws her the cutlery he’d just used; she steps aside just in time for it to land in the space Stefan’s head would have been had he not ducked.

Nobody bats an eyelid.

“O…kay,” says Bonnie from under the table. 

 

—

 

“So how does this work exactly?” Bonnie asks, sprawled on the roof.

(Even with their adjoined balconies, the space is a little too small for the five—oh, six, now that Rebekah’s climbed the trellis to join them. It was probably why Klaus hadn’t bothered to make the trip across for dinner, and probably why Rebekah chosen to hog the food truck instead.)

Rebekah grabs a beer and tramples across her brother to get to an empty spot on the blanket. “Elijah's away most of the time. Kol’s homeless. He pops in and out as he pleases. _And_ he never closes the bathroom curtains.”

Kol grins. “Our neighbours love a good show.”

“So the eight of you share four lofts?”

“Nine,” Stefan corrects coldly, lifting Stefan up. The _nerve_ of this Bennett girl to forget him.

Usually, this is the part where people start freaking out, wondering if all the polyamory rumours are true. Caroline exchanges a look with Stefan the Cat over Stefan’s shoulder. Stefan’s meow sounds like the feline version of a smirk.

But Bonnie doesn’t look disgusted—in fact, she looks a little impressed. “That’s actually pretty economical.”

 

—

 

Caroline toes aside a cat toy as she’s walking down the hall to her bedroom. Stefan keeps leaving them everywhere, and human Stefan doesn’t really care. All part of his Big Plan to make Stefan the Cat the face of their slowly-growing empire.

By making sure everywhere they walked squeaked with the reminder of him.

Lying in her bed, Klaus had traded in the script for Kafka. She climbs in after him, props her head on his chest and says, “Damon drew a diagram. You owe me twenty.”

He lifts his arm to let her snuggle more comfortably against him. “With labels?”

“And colour codes.”

Klaus rests his chin on the top of her head, nuzzling a _thank you_ when Caroline helps him turn a page. “Isn’t that three now that I’ve lost to you?”

“Not my fault you make bad bets,” Caroline murmurs as she squints at the page, tracing idle patterns on his chest.

“Not all bad.” He snaps his book shut and slides it onto the bedside table before rolling on top of her. Her bed smells of him, smoky cherries and expensive cologne, and his weight on her is soothing. She’s beyond tired—Kol had accidentally dropped Stefan the Cat over the railing and Stefan had made all of them scale the wall to get to the ledge where the cat was clinging on, spitting and hissing.

“I almost fell to my _death_ ,” she insists as a benign Klaus presses a kiss to her neck, and then that spot behind her ear that never fails to make her shiver. She feels his tongue on her earlobe, his hands against the incurve of her spine pulling her closer to him, his knee pressed up between her legs, and suddenly she’s flushed hot all over.

It’s not that they’ve never been in this situation before – they have, many times, several hotel rooms and a bathroom in the back of a club once – but never like this: never with Klaus moving against her, slowly but insistently; never with the trail of his tongue raising goose bumps on the tops of her breasts, never with his lips lingering _just_ out of reach.

She whines into the miniscule space between their lips and he grins down before kissing her. His tongue pressed against hers sends a surge of liquid hot want right through her and suddenly she’s grasping at his hair and pushing herself up against him, his knee rubbing slow circles against her, drinking in the muffled sounds he makes when her fingers play with the little curls at the nape of his neck, her body trembling when his hands reach for the hem of her sweater, and—

“Uh, guys?”

They break away, breathing hard.

Klaus growls out a curse under his breath when they see Kol hanging outside down outside their window.

“My belt caught on the turrets, Stefan refused to help, and—” Kol winces, “it’s kind of tight in the you-know-where. Not unlike your jeans right now, brother. Up top!”

Upside down, red-faced, belt digging painfully into his crotch, Kol still finds the time to cackle at Klaus, until there is a loud creaking sound: his face flashes with panic, his belt snaps, he slides out of his pants, his fingers barely managing to catch the ledge; he slams into her window and—

“Urgghhh, _Kol!”_ Caroline dives for her pillow, covering her eyes. “Do you _not_ wear underwear?”

 

—

 

Two things happen the next day:

Her window is disinfected (three times) and they get their scripts for episode eleven.

Caroline skims through it over breakfast until she reaches page twelve. She drops her muffin.

 

—

 

Since she can’t exactly talk to _Rebekah_ about this and Elena’s free-falling off of buildings in Bavaria, she finds herself in Bonnie’s trailer, knees drawn to her chest and huddling under the window.

Bonnie looks at her curiously. “So you have to sleep with him. That shouldn’t be hard, isn’t he your boyfriend?”

“ _Weeell_.” Caroline can’t really find the right words for it, so she lets her face speak for her instead. Because boyfriend is such a technical word; while on one hand Klaus is indeed her boy friend, space in the middle, on the other she doesn’t want him to just be her boy friend, space in the middle.

Not at all.

And it’s not like they’re even allowed to go public about it, under Camille’s strict orders – something to do with the fact that Lila and Paul are probably going to break up in the season finale – and no one really knew about them, which--

Wait.

“How do you know about me and Klaus?”

Bonnie rolls her eyes, _are you serious_? “You tossed a plate of eggplant parmesan to him,” she says flatly.

“So?” Caroline retorts. Defensive. Cool. Leaning-against-the-wall-in-a-beret cool. Okay, that’s a bit too much cool. Can it, Forbes. “Lots of people toss—”

“And the thigh you were stroking with your foot during lunch last week was actually mine.”

Caroline smacks her hand against her forehead. That’d explain Klaus’s total _non-_ reaction. That would also explain his total bewilderment (and also express joy) at her shoving him into her trailer, kissing him senseless _because_ of aforementioned non-reaction.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” she grouses, ducking down when a shadow crosses over them.

“Relax, it’s not Klaus,” Bonnie says, flipping through her magazine. “And it was really nice. We should do it again sometimes.”

Caroline doesn’t really know what to say, so she shrugs instead. “Yeah, well. He’s not really my boyfriend. And nobody’s supposed to know.”

“The matter at hand is Lila sleeping with Paul. The Big Sex Scene, right? Like you and he haven’t—” Bonnie flicks her eyes to her; they widen when her's screw shut. “No way, you two haven’t?”

“And now I have to _pretend do it_ in front of an entire room with a boom guy hovering over us,” Caroline moans into her hands.

She lets that sink in.

“Shit sucks,” Bonnie says before going back to her magazine.

 

—

 

Maurice and Kayden are getting back together the fourth time this season and it’s not even the mid-season hiatus yet, so Rebekah’s huffy mood is pretty much justified.

Tyler shuffles around looking miserable, visibly wincing whenever he sees a purse, throwing himself to the ground whenever Camille whizzes by in her golf cart, and the sight of Damon handing out KILL MAURICE badges and t-shirts off-set to fans makes him stare at his Americano in a strange way, like he wants to scald his face off with it.

Poor writing choices or not, Caroline leads him off into a safe space--

(Stefan’s old trailer, whom nobody would come near on account of Stefan the Cat spraying it with enough piss to resurrect the devil and drowned in enough bleach to arouse the suspicion of the local police.)

\--and swaths an old scratchy blanket around his shoulders.

“This job is going to kill me, Caroline,” Tyler shudders.

 

—

 

She’s helping Stefan walk Stefan around the set – after doing some basic recon and affirming that: Yeah, Klaus has no scenes today... why, you lookin' for him? I'll go call--hey, where you runnin'? – when Stefan says, “I don’t think asparagus tips bode well with Stefan. We should axe that the next time we have a dinner party. He prefers buttered noodles.”

“You should stop being such a prissy little bitch, Stefan,” she snarks like a prissy little bitch, because that recipe has been passed down her family for generations, okay?

Stefan tugs on the leash. Stefan comes to sit at his heels automatically.

He doesn’t ask her which Stefan she’s referring to, which is just as well – she doesn’t even know herself.

She closes her eyes and massages her temple. Stefan has that look on his face like he’s about to chew her out. Human Stefan just looks at her with his head tilted. “Alright, Care. Out with it.”

And because they’re best friends and because Stefan may be a prissy little bitch about the other Stefan, he's still the most level-headed person she knows, so she doesn’t shift from foot to foot or dodge: she just drags him off set and behind the food truck, where they sit with a jumbo set of cheesy fries between them.

Between bites of cheese (because damn if these things aren’t cathartic) she says, “I basically have to get it on with Klaus in front of, well – _everyone_ tomorrow. Do you remember how mortifying the table read was? Do you know what this _means?_   A dozen lights trained on me while I lie half naked in a bed with him, people prodding us to lean here, kiss there, sigh louder, moan … moanier. I have to look like a megalosexbomb in _lingerie,_ Stefan. And I’m sitting here eating friggen cheesy fries!”

“Bu’ heehy fwas are ho gooh,” Stefan says thickly.

“Damn straight,” she sighs, grabbing another mouthful.

 

—

 

 Klaus isn’t in her bed when she gets home, because he’s back on his balcony.

He doesn’t look up from his book when she steps onto hers.

“Hey,” she offers into the silence. Her hands wrap around her railing as she studies the closed expression on his face.

“Are we doing conversation now?” he asks with perfect nonchalance as he takes a sip of his scotch. “I was beginning to think Stefan had got your tongue.”

“Apologies, O Great Hybrid King,” she mutters.

“Caroline, I bought that car _two_ months ago, would you please stop with the tau—”

“Yeah, a car, when was the last time you even drove anywhere? We live in the heart of everything; you _walk_ to set for God’s sake—”

“I don’t recall you complaining about the car last week, when you dragged me to the backseat and pinned me with yo—”

“Yeah, well – I don’t want to have fake sex with you!”

Klaus’s page stops mid-turn and he lowers his book, Dostoyevsky this time, to finally look at her. After that comes his intelligent response: “What?”

She lets out an angry sigh and repeats, “I don’t want to have fake sex with you.”

“For the record, I don’t want to have fake sex with you either,” he responds smoothly. “Is this about tomorrow?”

“Obviously,” she says with an unhappy turn of her mouth. “And before you tell me I’m being _silly_ or _talking bollocks_ for blowing this whole thing out of proporti—”

“I’m nervous too, you know.”

The rest of what she’d been about to say gets stuck in her throat. Klaus looks a little sheepish, like he’d just revealed something shameful and oh so _secret_ the way he’s ducking his head and not looking her in the eye.

“Klaus,” she says in disbelief.

“When I got the script I almost made Stefan pee on it,” Klaus admits, and Caroline just rolls her eyes. Klaus is the only one besides Stefan who can actually make Stefan pee on command, and whenever this happens the room is always reduced to awed silence around them.

And Klaus, pretentious douche that he is, gets off on that.

She can only imagine all the high-fiving and man-posturing going on between him and Stefan.

They eye each other in silence.

“Just so you know,” Klaus says deliberately, “I’m going over there now.”

 

—

 

“Stupid jerk who doesn’t even want to have fake sex with me,” Caroline mutters in greeting when he pushes her against the wall the minute he stepped in.

“Because I intended to bed you thoroughly,” Klaus says against her neck, already hoisting her up. She feels him, rigid through his jeans and so deliciously pressed against her center. “And I know you’re fond of ad-libbing, but I say we rehearse this…”

“Thoroughly?” she finishes when he gets distracted. And with good reason: her hands are pulling at his belt, snaking past his zipper.

“I—,” Klaus clears his throat and blinks his blown pupils a few times before pressing her harder against the wall. “Yes.”

She slides herself very purposefully down his body and she’s crushed between him and her wallpaper as he falls against her. “How thorough?”

Klaus doesn’t answer. He’s already maneuvering through her apartment straight to her bedroom, her legs still wrapped around him. One of Stefan’s toys yelps under his shoes, and Caroline takes great pleasure in seeing him kick it across the room.

She takes even greater pleasure in him throwing her down on the bed.

Klaus is crawling between her legs, making a grand show of slowly parting them when she grabs him by his collar, pulling him in for a hungry kiss. It’s like someone’s lit her skin on fire: his hands on her is relieving, but not much. She tears his shirt away and he makes short work of buttons on her dress, and pretty soon he’s sliding his skin against hers, the taut muscles in his chest pressed flush against her stomach as he kisses his way down her neck.

Her underwear is pulled down her legs tantalizingly slow, and she shudders at the soft cotton tracking across her hyper-sensitive skin. Suddenly he has his tongue running up her thighs and his finger circling her folds, but it’s only when he presses his lips _right there, yes_ , that she realizes just how thorough he means to be.

He makes her come with just his tongue, and later when she’s on top of him, his hands digging into her hips, making encouraging sounds in low husky rasps, guiding her into a rhythm that’s making her see white she comes again.

And _later_ , when he’s collapsed on top of her, he says, “Love, that was fantastic and you are ridiculously beautiful, but I don’t think you were moaning loud enough--and the script was very specific if you recall. We should try that bit again.”

“Shut up,” she says, but she kisses a trail down his chest anyway, before disappearing under the sheets.

 

—

 

 Anna’s powdering her nose and someone else is artfully mussing up Klaus’s hair before Tyler says, “Let’s try that again.”

So now Paul is hovering over Lila in the rumpled sheets, grinning down at her oh so very wickedly, but Caroline’s _pretty_ sure the script didn’t call for Klaus pressing his hips against her quite in that way. She wants to widen her eyes, swat him and hiss, _This isn’t HBO!_ but it’s total quiet on the set and Klaus is kissing his way down, down, down—

“Cut!”

“Klaus,” Tyler says, exasperated, “This is the _eleventh_ take, you’re not supposed to kiss lower than her bra. If I hadn’t stopped you, it looks like you would have gone all the way.”

“Apologies, mate - forgot the script. Should we take it from the top, then? I think we should take it from the top.” He grins at the room.

Caroline groans inwardly, before it turns into a little snarl, because Klaus is hard against her thigh and his hand is working secretly under the sheets, and don’t even _think_ she doesn’t know what he’s doing.

 

—

 

It's over.

Finally.

(Not that she didn't like, _enjoy_ being paid to make out with Klaus, but she could literally smell the onion rings the hovering boom guy had for lunch while she was being paid to make out with Klaus, so.

Though in retrospect, her job is significantly better than having to hover over two actors being paid to make out, _so--_  
  
 _She_ should really stop thinking 'make out'.)

 

—

 

Elena comes back after a long flight to find Kol bleating show tunes in her shower and Damon’s piss-soaked KILL MAURICE t-shirts overflowing her washing machine.

She hurls it all out her window and they land on top of Enzo, who’s bemoaning the state of his rosebushes.

(“This is the _fifth_ time, you bloody entitled shits!” Enzo yells when he gathers all of them later, smelling of cat pee.)

Which is how Klaus has to give up his Hybrid and all the memories that came with it, compensation for Enzo not throwing all of them out on their asses.

Stefan nods sagely, says, “You’ve done well, Klaus.”

He floats out of the room with Stefan in tow, oblivious to the finger Klaus sends his way.

 

—

 

Aside from the Hybrid thing, two more things happen that day:

She and Klaus - and a roomful of execs, whatever - are shown the uncut footage of them having fake sex. It looks pretty good, and even Camille looks happy with it, which makes Tyler not want to drown himself in his coffee.  
  
And to her total bewilderment (and also express joy), Klaus shoves her into his trailer, kissing her senseless until it leads to, you know, actual sex.

 

—

 

Oh, and one last thing:

Bonnie comes over again for Elena’s welcome back dinner, and this time she doesn’t even blink when Caroline throws an entire pot roast over the balcony.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so this has been really fun to write. i don't really know if i plan on adding more chapters, so for now - consider this a tentative ending.
> 
> cheers x


End file.
